Babylon South

by Jon Cleary

  Malone said meekly, “I’ll check the bank account.”

  Which he did, that afternoon. No money had been drawn from Sir Walter Springfellow’s account. “But I believe he had—has—an account with our Melbourne main branch,” said the bank’s manager.

  Malone called Melbourne. There was some hesitation at the other end, then the manager there said, “I’m sorry, officer, we can’t give out that information. I suggest you contact ASIO.”

  Malone hung up, sat frowning till Sergeant Danforth came lumbering across the room towards him. “What’s the matter, son?”

  Malone explained the unexpected blank wall he had run into. “Do I call ASIO or pass it on to Sergeant Zanuch to handle?”

  Danforth dropped heavily into a chair; he had never been known to remain standing for longer than ten seconds. He was a tall, heavily built man, old-fashioned in dress, haircut and manner; he looked like someone who had been left over from the 1940s and wished he were still back in those days. He was only fifteen or so years older than Malone, but two generations could have separated them. “Ring ASIO. If you don’t get anywhere with them, let it slide. We won’t wanna get ourselves caught up in any politics.” That was laziness, not wisdom, speaking. “You know what politics is like, son.”

  At that stage of his career Malone knew nothing about politics; but he was prepared to take Danforth’s advice. He rang Melbourne and after some interruptions and hesitations was put through to the Deputy Director-General. “Ah yes, Constable—Malone, is it? Yes, we have asked the bank to put a stop on any enquiries about Sir Walter’s personal affairs. We have looked into it and there is nothing there.”

  “Then why stop any enquiries, sir?” Malone was on his way to making his later fame, the asking of undiplomatic questions of higher authority.

  “I’m afraid that’s classified, constable. Good day.”

  The phone went dead in Malone’s ear. He hung up and looked at Danforth, still lolling in the chair opposite him. “They told us to get lost, Sarge.”

  “You see, son? Politics.”

  So Malone went to Hong Kong to play cricket in front of the English expatriates who murmured “Good shot!” and “Well caught, sir!” while the other 99 per cent of the colony shuffled by and inscrutably scrutinized the white flannelled fools who played this foolish game while the end of the world, 1997, was only thirty-one years away. Malone, who took fourteen wickets in the two matches played and, every decent fast bowler’s dream, retired two batsmen hurt, was as short-sighted and oblivious as any of the other fools. They all had their priorities right.

  When he came back Sir Walter Springfellow was still missing and ASIO and the Commonwealth Police had taken the case unto themselves. Detective-Sergeant Zanuch had gone from Special Branch to the Fraud Squad and Malone himself was transferred from Missing Persons to the Pillage Squad on the wharves.

  On Sunday July 17, four months after her father had disappeared, Justine Springfellow was born. By then the file on Sir Walter Springfellow had been put away in the back of a Missing Persons cabinet drawer and Sergeant Danforth, soon to be told to get to his feet and join the Vice Squad, conveniently forgot about it.

  Sir Walter’s disappearance would remain a mystery for another twenty-one years.

  1

  I

  BY SHEER coincidence, without which no successful policeman could function, Detective-Inspector Scobie Malone was, indirectly, working for Venetia Springfellow when the skeleton of a middle-aged man was found in some scrub in the mountains west of Sydney.

  “Up near Blackheath. I thought you might like to talk to the lady,” said Sergeant Russ Clements, calling from Homicide. “It looks as if it might be her late hubby, Sir Walter. They tell me she’s out there at the studio.”

  “Are they sure it’s him?”

  “Pretty sure. The upper and lower jaws are missing, so they can’t check on the teeth. It looks as if the whole lower part of the face was blasted away.”

  “How did we get into it?” Meaning Homicide.

  “There’s no weapon, no gun, nothing. The detectives up at Blackheath have ruled out suicide—for the moment, anyway. Unless someone found the body, didn’t report it but pinched the gun.”

  “What’s the identification then?”

  “There’s a signet ring on one of the fingers—it has his initials on it. There’s also a briefcase with his initials on it.”

  “Anything in the briefcase?”

  “Empty. That’s why the Blackheath boys think it’s murder—if someone had stolen the gun, supposing he’d suicided, they’d have taken the ring and the briefcase, too. It’s him, all right. You want to prepare her for the bad news? They’ll come out later to tell her officially, get her to identify the ring and the briefcase.”

  “Are we on the job—officially?”

  “Yep. I just came back from my broker’s and there was the docket on your desk.”

  “From your who?”

  “My stockbroker.”

  “What happened to your bookie?”

  “I’ll tell you later. You gunna tell her?”

  Malone hesitated. He hated that part of police work, the bringing of bad news to a family. Certainly the Springfellow family had had twenty-one years to prepare itself; it must by now have given up hope that Walter Springfellow was still alive. Nonetheless, someone had to tell the widow and, for better or worse, he was the man on the spot.

  “Righto, I’ll tell her. Can you come out and pick me up?”

  “What about Woolloomooloo Vice?” It was their private joke.

  “You wouldn’t believe what they’re shooting today. The actor playing you wears a gold bracelet and suede shoes.”

  “I’ll sue „em.”

  Malone hung up and smiled at the assistant floor manager who had brought him to the phone. She was a jeans-clad wind-up doll, one year out of film school, bursting with self-importance and programmed to talk only in jargon. She was always explaining to Malone how the dynamics of a scene worked. She was intrigued at the dynamics of Malone’s call. “A homicide, Scobie? A real one?”

  He nodded. “A real one, Debby. Where will I find Lady Springfellow?”

  “Holy shit, Lady Springfellow! Is she involved?”

  “Imagine the dynamics of that, eh?”

  He grinned at her and went back on the set to tell the director he would not be available for the rest of the day. He welcomed the escape, even if he could have done with better circumstances; he could not remember disliking an assignment more than this one. Sydney Beat, an Australian-American co-production, was a thirteen-part series and he was supposed to spend one day each week with the production as technical adviser. This was the third week and so far it had all been purgatory.

  Simon Twitchell, the director, was another film-school graduate; he had majored in temperament. “Oh God, what is it this time? You’re always pissing off when we need you—”

  Malone wanted to king-hit him, but Twitchell was small and dainty and Malone didn’t want to break him in half like a cheesestick. He also had in mind that, though Sydney Beat was supposed to be a police series, the crew and the cast, all at least ten to twenty years younger than Malone, had no time for real cops, the fuzz and the pigs. Sovfilm, making a John Wayne movie, would have been more respectful.

  “I was pissed off the day I walked in here,” said Malone keeping his temper.

  Then Gus Leroy, the producer, came out of the shadows and into the lights. He was a short, round man who always dressed in black and whose moods and humour could be the same colour. “What the fuck’s the matter this time?” All his aggression, like Twitchell’s, was in his language; they would leave bigger men to do their fighting for them. “You’re always fucking nit-picking. What’s wrong this time?”

  “You mean with the production?” All at once Malone saw the opportunity to escape from this farce for good. “It’ll never get the ratings. Every crim in the country will laugh their heads off—they’ll think it’s the Benny Hil
l Show. I have to go and see Lady Springfellow. Hooroo, in case I don’t come back.”

  He walked across the set, watched by the crew and cast. The set was a permanent one, the apartment of the series’ hero, a detective-sergeant. Malone had criticized it, saying its luxury would embarrass even the Commissioner, but Leroy had told him they hadn’t engaged him as a design consultant. He, an American, knew what American audiences liked and this series was aimed at the American market. Malone walked past a backdrop of Sydney Harbour, a panorama only a millionaire could afford, and out of the sound stage. As the heavy sound-proof door wheezed to behind him, it sounded like an amplification of his own sigh of relief. He would be hauled over the coals tomorrow at Police Headquarters, but that was something he could weather. He had gone in one step from being an adviser to being a critic and he felt the smug satisfaction that is endemic to all critics, even amateurs.

  It took him several minutes to get to see Lady Springfellow; it seemed that she had more minders than the Prime Minister. Perhaps the richest woman in the land was entitled to them; there was no reason why rich women should be more accessible than rich men. All at once he longed for a call to go and interview someone out amongst the battlers in the western suburbs, someone alone and without minders. But not to give him or her bad news.

  “Lady Springfellow says what is it about?” The last line of defence was an Asian secretary, a beautiful Singapore-Chinese with her blue-black hair cut in a Twenties bob and her demeanour just as severe. Malone could see her guarding the Forbidden City in old Peking with a two-edged sword and no compunction about chopping off a head or two.

  “I’ll tell her when I see her,” he said evenly.

  The secretary stared at him, looking him up and down in sections. She saw a tall, well-built man in his early forties, who was not handsome but might be distinguished-looking in his old age, long-jawed and blue-eyed and with a wide good-humoured mouth that, she guessed correctly, could be mean and determined when obstacles were put in his way.

  “I’ll see what she says to that.” In her Oriental way she could be just as stubborn. But when she came back from the inner office she produced an unexpected smile, though it might have been malicious. “Watch your step, Inspector”

  “Oh, I always do that,” he said, but there were some in the Department, including the Commissioner, who would have disputed that.

  Malone had been told that the Channel 15 network was being done over in its new owner’s image. The previous colour scheme of the network, from ashtrays to screen logo, had been bright blue and orange, a combination that had brought on a generational bout of conjunctivitis known to ophthalmologists from Perth to Cairns as “Channel 15 eye.” The new owner had insisted on muted pink and grey, a choice that had viewers, on tuning into the new network logo, fiddling with their controls. The natives liked colour, otherwise what was the point of owning a colour set? Even Bill Cosby had a purple tinge on Australian screens.

  The chief executive’s office was pink and grey; so was the chief executive, Roger Dircks, who sat in a chair at one side. The owner herself sat behind the big modern desk; reigning queens do not squat on their own footstools. She was dressed in pink slacks and shirt, grey calf-length boots and had a pink and grey silk scarf tied round her shoulders. A pink cashmere cardigan was draped over the chair behind her.

  “So you’re the estimable Inspector Malone?” He had never been called estimable before, not even by the better educated, unembittered crims. “What do you think of our series?”

  He thought he had better get that out of the way at once. “I have an eight-year-old daughter—she’ll love it.”

  “It’s not being made for eight-year-olds.” The throaty voice suddenly turned chilly, an icy wind over the rocks. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Lady Springfellow, that’s not why I’m here. It’s something more important—and I think it will upset you.”

  Venetia went stiff without moving. He had not seen her in person since that visit to her home in Mosman long ago and he was surprised how little she seemed to have changed. True, there were signs of age, but she had lasted remarkably well. Her skin and jawline had kept their own suspension, there had been no need for lifting, and her blonde hair was still thick and lustrous. Even her mouth had somehow missed that thinning of the lips that comes to ageing women, as if pursing them at the misdeeds of men has worn away their youthful fullness. But then rumour said that Venetia Springfellow had never tired of men and was careless of their misdeeds, except in business. She was regal amongst her commoner lovers. Money and power turn a beautiful woman into a fantasy.

  “Upset me, Inspector? Then it must be something dreadful.”

  Malone told her, as gently as he could. “They’re certain it’s your husband.”

  Venetia blinked; but there was no sign of tears. She looked at Roger Dircks, who moved his small mouth as if he were trying to find words to fit it. He was a tall, plump man in his early fifties, with a smooth pink face under a pelt of grey hair that lay on his small head like a bathing-cap. He was dressed in a grey wool suit with a pink shirt and a grey silk tie. Malone, in his polyester blue, felt like an ink-blot on a pale watercolour.

  Dircks stood up, moved towards Venetia, then stopped. One did not lay a hand on the Queen Bee, even in sympathy; she was to be touched only by invitation. At last he said, “This is God-awful, Venetia! It’s the last thing you want—”

  “Of course it’s the last thing I want,” she said coldly. “You have a talent for the bon mot, Roger.”

  Malone had an abrupt feeling of déjà vu; the last time he had met Venetia Springfellow there had been animosity between her and someone else—had it been her sister-in-law? He wasn’t sure; he had forgotten the case till he had come here to the studio and learned that Lady Springfellow was the new boss.

  “Do I have to—to identify him, Inspector?”

  “No, I think you can be spared that. There’s only a skeleton.” She winced a little, as if she found it hard to believe that that was all that was left of a loved one. “But they’ll ask you to identify the ring and the briefcase.”

  She said nothing for a while, looking at him and through him. Then she frowned, her gaze focusing. “I have a memory for faces and names. Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?”

  “Years ago. I came with Sergeant Zanuch to interview you when your husband first disappeared. He’s an Assistant Commissioner now.”

  She nodded, looked abstracted again. Malone studied her while he waited for her to make the next move. She had come a long way from Venetia Magee, the midday TV hostess of the Sixties; he had never known where she had stood in the ratings, but it had been reasonably high. Her biggest cachet was that she had married into the Springfellow family; old money had meant more then than it did now. Now, of course, she had new money, her own, trainloads of it. He could only guess at what she owned, maybe even a major part of the country. She was the only woman amongst the nation’s twenty richest voters, a rose amongst some very prickly males who, it seemed, were always photographed looking sideways, as if they expected her to sneak up in ambush on them. It was said that if she wore her success lightly, others wore it heavily. She was a boss to be feared.

  She said, “Did he die—naturally? Or suicide or what?”

  “They think it was murder.” He didn’t want to describe the state of the dead man’s skull. The bereaved should be left with proper memories.

  “Murdered?” She frowned again and suddenly, just for a moment, seemed to age.

  Then the door opened and a young girl stood there. “Mother—oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you—”

  “Come in, darling.” Venetia had recovered, the lines disappearing from her face. “This is Inspector Malone—he’s just brought me some bad news. This is my daughter Justine.”

  Venetia and Justine: whatever happened to good old names like Dot and Shirl? The daughter had a resemblance to her mother, though she was more beautiful, her features more perfect; she h
ad dark hair, instead of her mother’s blonde, but it was cut in the same full style. She was dressed as stylishly as Venetia, though not in pink and grey. She was in a blue silk suit and Malone didn’t feel quite so much of a blot. She had all the looks, but there was something missing: her mother’s shadow dimmed the edges of her.

  “Bad news? What bad news?”

  “They have found your father’s—skeleton.” The image was still troubling her. A collection of old bones: could one have once loved that? “Somewhere up in the Blue Mountains.”

  “Blackheath,” said Malone.

  Justine sat down in one of the grey chairs. Dircks moved to her and put his hand on her shoulder; she was touchable, her mother’s daughter but not yet the boss. “It’s dreadful, love. You don’t need such a shock—” Then he looked at Venetia, knowing he had said the wrong thing again. His shallowness had less depth than one would have thought. He had risen to this position as chief executive only because he was a survivor; he had no talent, managerial or creative, but that often wasn’t necessary in the entertainment business. Selling oneself was as important as selling air-time and up till now he had sold himself well. “I’ll get your driver to take you both home—”

  “No,” said Venetia. “We’ll finish our business first. After—what?—twenty-one years, another half-hour . . . When will you bring the ring and the briefcase, Inspector, for me to identify?”

  “The Scientific men will bring that, I guess.”

  “Was there nothing else? His clothes?”

  “They didn’t mention any. Can you remember what he was wearing when he disappeared?”

  She shook her head. “Of course not. All those years ago? There would have been a label in them—he had everything made at Cutlers—he prided himself on the way he dressed.”